I call these people cyborgs. They’re engaged, but when they can’t take the time to engage, they let the software do the talking for them by sharing content.

I understand the cyborgs. They have jobs. They have lives. They can’t spend their lives in communion with their computer or smartphone in an attempt to be a god of social networking.

But at what point do you decide that you should be a publisher when you’re not around? How do you measure the value of sharing content when you’re not there to see the conversation it creates? If the conversation is so important to you, why can’t you be there to start it in the first place?

Maybe it’s different for some people. Maybe these people are too worried about building a cult of personality around themselves than actually making social networking social.

Or maybe they’re just smart about how they use their time. I don’t know what their exact motivations are.

What I do know is that I think something is lost when you decide that it’s more important to be a robotic publisher. If you decide you can’t be everywhere, but want to give the illusion that you are, you haven’t made the decision about what’s really important to you.

You can’t have it both ways. You have to decide where your real priorities are. If social networking is important to you, make the time to be there. If the real world is important to you, don’t spend your time trying to make yourself appear like your always online.

Don’t end up a cyborg, unable to chose what will actually make you happy and successful. Make a choice about what’s really important to you.

Are you a cyborg? What made you choose to allow the computer to take over your feeble social networking skills?

When I go to bed, people in the US (golden hour) are awake. What do i do? I schedule my tweets so that I can have content there and get traffic rather thane posting when everyone is asleep. I still respond to most tweets to network and jump into conversations. Call me a half cyborg.

@JayDolan I share AaronLee’s modus operandi, although I tweet in the opposite direction. so I’m a cyborg from Canada. :-p Depending on the industry, cyborging is an excellent way to share relevant content with Tweeps who live in different time zones, as well as a way to repost content you put out earlier, but would like to share with Tweeps who connect at a later time. We cyborgs are like Bruce Wayne: although we’re sometimes late at our own party, we still get the credit for throwing it. 😉

I schedule my tweets, because if I didn’t I’d end up posting a couple tweets at 9 am, and then I’d maybe post something interesting at 3 pm, and then I might be silent for a day or two. Since I have a job to do, meetings to go to, phone calls to make, and I’d like to be a bit consistent about some of my personal social media, I schedule my tweets. That doesn’t mean I’m not able to keep an eye out for a conversation throughout the day. It’s a way to be productive, involved, and somewhat consistent. I see less of a reason on my FB page, but if I were using it for marketing purposes I could see I might.